Week 6: Government influence on LCA implementation

The topic of this week was how governments can influence the market to reach their own goals. Four methods governments can use to stimulate the use of LCA's are:

External control through regulations
Before certain products are allowed to be sold they will have to undergo a LCA. Also communication to the public is important to let the market determine if these products will still be sold. For example labeling with easy to understand benchmarks can make sure the information is accessible.

External control through taxes
If products are taxed by their environmental impact than information is needed about this impact. If no Life Cycle Assessment is made a worst case scenario would be applied. So products that are not assessed would fall in the highest tax scale.

Boundary conditions through deregulation
It could be agreed with industries to manage targets on LCA's before a specific date, otherwise regulations will be made. Self organization of the industries will help to share data, control the members and maintain competitiveness with an equal playing ground.

Boundary conditions through stimulation
Subsidies, knowledge generation and consulting can be friendly ways to stimulate a certain behaviour. Of course this comes with a price in financial terms. Montero (2011) comes with a hybrid solution to cover expenses with taxes on non cooperating parties. There are expected benefits from increased research & development. According to Cobb (2004) studies have shown that investing in R&D generates growth in markets that become increasingly competitive.

Conclusion
My choice for this specific goal is with boundary conditions through deregulation. This way the expertise available at the companies involved can be used for implementation. A non governmental organization could control the results. If targets are not being made, a form of external control could be applied.

The stimulation option to increase the use of LCA's will probably only influence products that already have a green image. This method is more useful to inform the market about the relevance. Also being a role model can help with sustainable procurement.

References:

Montero, J. M. (2011). A note on environmental policy and innovation when governments cannot commit. Energy Economics, 33, 13-19.

Cobb, D & Gates, J. (2004). Incentives for innovation. Engineering Management 14(3), 14-17.